David Avidan

David Avidan (1934-1995) was born in Tel Aviv. He is considered one of Israel’s leading poets and a major originator of contemporary, avant-garde Israeli poetry. Avidan’s work has been translated extensively, and collections of his poems have been published in French, Russian, and Arabic. Among his awards: the Abraham Woursell Award from the University of Vienna, the Bialik Award, and the Prime Minister award. He published nineteen books of poetry, as well as plays and children’s books. Most recently, his work has appeared in the anthology Poets on the Edge: An Anthology of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry (SUNY Press, 2008).

Tsipi Keller

Tsipi Keller was born in Prague, raised in Israel, and has been living in the U.S. since 1974. She is the recipient of several literary awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship, and an Armand G. Erpf award from Columbia University. Her recent translation collections are: Poets on the Edge: An Anthology of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry (SUNY Press, 2008); and The Hymns of Job & Other Poems, a Lannan Translation Selection (BOA Editions, 2008).